Montserrat

Yesterday, we went to Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery on a sacred mountain for the Catalan people (in the middle of a national park). It was an amazing mountain with incredibly jagged rocky peaks, and it was a lot cooler up there which was a nice break from the hot weather in Sitges. (The online weather for Sitges has had it in the low to mid 80's this whole week, but all I can say is that if that has been true, it has been the absolute hottest week of mid-80s temperatures that I've ever experienced.)

The monastery at Montserrat started in the 9th century, but even before it began there were already hermits living in the caves in the mountains around it. The monastery is still active, and is a popular tourist and pilgrimage site, though the hermitages were all abandoned in the early 1800s (I think during Napoleon's invasion).

One of the biggest attractions at Montserrat is "the black Virgin" a Romanesque statue dated to the 12th century that has been venerated by pilgrims for so long (and surrounded by candle smoke continuously) that its face has turned black. The line to get to the statue was so long that we were content to look at it from afar and skip a needless line. Other than that, Austin, Tucker and I went to a midday prayer service that must've been in four different languages, toured the basilica, heard a kids choir, and took a railcar up part of the way from the monastery to the true top of the mountain from where we walked to see some of the old hermitages in caves. It was pretty neat.

Here are a bunch more pics, including some from Sitges and Barcelona still. (Last entry I had trouble uploading pics, so hopefully they will upload better today.)

Spanish time

This is day five of our Spanish odyssey (though day 1 didn't really count because it was mostly travel). So far Tucker has been a champ. We took a redeye over and Tucker slept almost the entire flight over. It was pretty funny because he assumed the craziest sleeping positions on the airplane--he would flop himself off the seat and then climb right back up (still sleeping), or he would sleep hinged at the midle with his feet on the floor and his torso on the seat.

The only part of the trip that was stressful, and this was not in any way associated with Tucker, was navigating the Madrid airport. We only had one boarding pass for both of our flights which had the same flight number (but on which we had different seats). The pass didn't tell us what gate or what time the second flight (to Barcelona) left. I thought maybe we were just supposed to stay on our plane at Madrid and that plane would just go to Barcelona. No. Iberia airlines just has some crazy system of ticketing so we deplaned (only with our boarding pass stubs) and got kicked all around the airport, through customs and everything. Only after 45 minutes of this were we able to figure out that our stubs would be enough to get us on our next flight, which had about 15 different flight numbers (and whose gate was posted only about 10 minutes before it boarded). Weird.

Aside from traveling, we envisioned a vacation where Tucker would more or less keep the same hours he does at home (awake before 7 am, asleep before 7 pm) and thus basically be on our own for long parts of the day because the rest of our group would get up late and go to bed late. Instead, Tucker seems to have embraced his Spanish roots and is staying up to 11 pm and waking up at 11 am (the LAST of everyone to wake up). Austin and I have even been sleeping until 10 am--I think the last time either of us has woken up at 10 am was college. It feels very luxurious.

The villas where we're staying are right on the beach, but we were surprised to find that the beach is definitely a clothing optional beach. It is a bit shocking to our American sensibilities. We are definitely the most clothed family on the whole beach with Tucker's swim shirt, and my swim shorts, not to mention just suits in general. Thankfully, Tucker remains oblivious to this fact (which is very important because has absolutely no filter and the naked beach could become a favorite topic of conversation for him for months).

We're staying in Sitges (see-juhz) which is a little seaside town outside Barcelona. The downtown is a 15 minute walk from our villa. One of the highlights of our trip so far was the paella we had at a oceanside cafe on Sunday. It was amazing. (Incidentally, we learned that marinara paella is seafood paella NOT tomato-sauce paella). The streets in Sitges are cobble stoned and lined with little shops in old stone buildings. There is a prominient old cathedral along the rocky coast (the beach is below the rocks). It is just beautiful. Another highlight was timing our trip for the night Spain won its first world cup. Sitges is really a tourist town so I'm not sure we got a sense for the true nationalist soccer fervor, but it was still pretty exciting.

We ventured into Barcelona yesterday to see some of the big city sights. We didn't bring a stroller because Tucker is not good at sitting in one anymore (he likes to push them and "fix" their wheels). But that makes walking around in hot weather pretty tough. We ended up seeing the outside of Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, an amazing cathedral still being built (only 130 years in the works). The line to get in was two blocks long and according to my aunts and uncles that had visited the day before, there was a lot of jackhammering going on inside (Tucker hates loud noises), so we skipped the inside. After that we saw La Ramblas and La Placa Catalunya then took the Tourist Bus around the old town. Tucker liked the double decker bus and the water fountains around town the best. The bus ride was a little too long and not very well narrated, but we got a little bit of a sense of the city. Tucker ended up conking out in my lap for 45 minutes... when it was our time to get off, Austin slung him over his shoulder, and Tucker slept another 10 minutes on Austin's shoulder. It has been more than a year since he's slept like that on us.

Recent Pics

We're getting ready to go on our big family trip to Spain in a couple days and are tying up lose ends here. I'm charging my camera and making room for vacation pics, so here's the latest of the pics that were on there: our trip to the mountains including some shots of the hotel Tucker loved and the gorge we went to (notice the swinging bridge and my son's utter lack of fear--even though the bridge had a 4" gap on either side of the planks), hanging out by the river on our property (thankfully the pics don't show the 45 minute tantrum that followed when we told Tucker it was time to leave the river...), and a fourth of July concert that involved a lot of wearing of other people's hats.

Trip to the Mountains

This week Austin was doing work in a mountain county a couple hours away this week, and stayed out there so that he wouldn't waste half a day just driving to get to the site. Tucker and I decided to join him for a night to get a break from the heat, get to play in the mountains, and so that we could get some spray foam sprayed in our basement (necessitating an empty house for 24 hours).

Anyway, I learned some things on this trip:

1) I am a hotel snob. I haven't stayed in a run-down motel ("vintage" is how the motel guide described itself) in a long, long time. It was worse than I thought it could be. No bedskirts, stained rugs, cigarette holes in the bedspread, mold on the wallpaper in the bathroom, a broken bedframe, flat pillows that hadn't been replaced in years (and that gave A. and I both allergy attacks), and more.

2) Tucker is not a hotel snob. He thought the room was fabulous and the hotel really nice. He thought we should stay in the room all day, waiting for "Bob" to come on TV (Sponge Bob Square Pants).

3) Tucker thought it was really fun to be in the same room as his parents. Austin and I did not share his opinion. We did our best to construct a visual barrier so he would go to sleep, but it was just too exciting. Instead, Tucker spent most of the night chucking Ducky off the bed and going to retrieve him. We spent most of the night having allergy attacks and trying to ignore Tucker.

4) White noise machines are helpful, but they're no match for a rowdy toddler. Key piece of packing advice for our next vacation: ear plugs!

5) The most exciting part of our trip for Tucker was the water fountain at the playground. Apparently he hasn't drunk from one before, and it was an unmatched experience. Will he think the airport fountains are equally exciting next week?

Incidentally, I should mention that I'm writing this entry with Ducky on my head. Apparently, Ducky is my hat and I am supposed to wear him all the time. Tucker sometimes wears Ducky's brother on his head so we can match, but mostly it is just ME that is supposed to sport a Duck headdress.